Canary Mission: Israel site ramps up attacks on pro-Palestine protesters

Weeks after attending a pro-Palestinian demonstration, Egyptian-American student Layla Sayed received a text message from a friend drawing her attention to Canary Mission, a website dedicated to exposing people it says promote hatred of Jews and Israel.

“I think they found you from the protest,” the friend wrote.

When Sayed visited the site, called Canary Mission, she found a photo from the Oct. 16 rally at the University of Pennsylvania with red arrows pointing to her among the demonstrators. The post included her name, the two cities she lives in, details about her studies and links to her social media accounts.

Canary Mission later posted a photo of her on its X and Instagram accounts labeled “Hamas War Crimes Apologist,” a reference to the Palestinian group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

Israel later launched a military offensive in the Gaza Strip that has killed nearly 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.

Comments about Sayed from social media users poured in.

“No future for that c.nt,” one X user wrote. “Candidate for deportation to Gaza,” wrote another.

Although Sayed has long supported Palestinian causes, she said it was the first time she had participated in a pro-Palestinian demonstration at Penn, and Canary Mission did not flag any other activities.

“My initial reaction was just absolute shock,” Sayed, a 20-year-old sophomore, told Reuters. “I wasn’t there to say I supported Hamas. I wasn’t there to say I hated Israel. I was there to say what’s happening in Palestine is wrong.”

She said she did not realize at the time that a chant Canary Mission took issue with, “When people are occupied, resistance is justified,” is considered by some as an expression of support for Hamas’ killings. She joined in the chants, she said, to show support for demonstrations.

Responding to an inquiry submitted via Canary Mission’s website, a spokesperson from the Tel Aviv-based public relations firm Gova10 wrote the site has been “working around the clock” to combat a “wave of antisemitism” on college campuses since Oct. 7, including by exposing people who endorse Hamas.

The spokesperson, Elya Cowland, did not respond to questions about Sayed’s profile or the online abuse directed against Canary Mission’s targets. While the site relies on tips, he said it verifies what it publishes, drawing from publicly available sources. Its profiles include links to its targets’ social media posts, public speeches and interviews with journalists.

Penn officials did not respond to questions about Sayed’s case.

“Penn is focused on the well-being of all members of the community,” a university spokesperson, Steve Silverman, told Reuters, adding that staff reach out to offer support when aware of concerning situations.

Canary Mission is one of the oldest and most prominent of several digital advocacy groups that have intensified campaigns to expose Israel’s critics since the war broke out, often leading to harassment such as Sayed experienced. The people behind the site have kept their identities, location and funding sources hidden.

Reuters reviewed online attacks and abusive messages directed at scores of people targeted by Canary Mission since Oct. 7.

The site has accused over 250 U.S. students and academics of supporting terrorism or spreading antisemitism and hatred of Israel since the start of the latest Gaza conflict, according to the Reuters review of its posts. Some are leading members of Palestinian rights groups or were arrested for offenses such as blocking traffic and punching a Jewish student.

Others, like Sayed, said they had just stepped into campus activism and were not charged with any crimes.

Reuters spoke to 17 students and one research fellow from six U.S. universities featured on Canary Mission since Oct. 7. They include other students who chanted slogans during protests, leaders of groups that backed statements saying Israel bears sole responsibility for the violence and people who argued in social media posts that armed resistance by

Palestinians is justified. All but one said they had received hate messages or seen vitriolic comments posted about them online.

Messages reviewed by Reuters called for their deportation or expulsion from school or suggested they should be raped or killed.